by A. E. Howe
I glared at him. He sighed.
The hospital was quiet as we made our way down to the morgue. Dr. Darzi was already examining the body of Angie Maitland. He looked up as an intern escorted us into the large antiseptic room.
“Gentlemen,” he greeted us, then continued his external inspection. I actually found this more disconcerting than the slice-and-dice part of the autopsy. It seemed very personal, looking at someone’s armpits, up their nose, into their mouth and inside and around all the unmentionable parts.
“Glad you could join me this afternoon. I’ll remind you that I am recording the proceedings.” He tapped the microphone that hung over the table. “I keep the complete recording for the official record. So don’t say anything you wouldn’t want your mothers to hear.” Darzi’s accent had a soft Indian lilt. The man was maybe a decade older than me, but I always felt that he was in better physical and mental shape and would stay that way.
“Any thoughts yet?” Pete asked.
Darzi sighed. “I’ve barely started. But…” He went to the front of the table and tilted up the head. There were ugly deep purple impressions around Angie’s neck. “I won’t know how much damage was done until I take the X-rays and get inside, but I can tell you that she was definitely strangled with the piece of rope we found still wrapped around her neck. If it didn’t cause her death, it would have. We cut it off.” He pointed to an evidence bag on a counter.
“Odd. I don’t remember any of the women who were assaulted mentioning that Ayers wrapped anything around their necks, or even his hands,” I said.
“I think he just pushed their heads down,” Pete confirmed.
“I’ll be glad to compare the pictures and medical records from those assaults with my findings in this case,” Darzi told us.
As Dr. Darzi conducted his examination, it soon became clear that Angie Maitland had not been raped. And there was one other odd thing. Darzi called us in close to look at the side of her head.
“Look at this laceration,” he said, pointing to a spot above her left ear where a small amount of blood had matted her hair.
“I can’t be sure, but from the position of the wound, and the fact that the wound bled for a while after the injury, I’d say that it happened as much as half an hour before she died.”
“That’s the type of injury that you could get from being shoved into a car,” Pete said, having seen more than his share of them. As a deputy, you try to protect a suspect’s head as you put them into the back seat of your patrol car, but if the suspect is fighting you, or if you are being intentionally rough, it’s easy to leave a wound like that on the side of the person’s skull.
I thought about this for a minute and tried to do the math. I took out my phone and looked at a picture I’d taken of the bank’s CCTV. I’d remembered the time stamp correctly.
“If she was abducted at the bank after the deposit was made, and the murder occurred shortly before Nichols called it in, then the timeline works,” I told them.
“Did you verify the time on the CCTV?” Pete asked me.
“Yes. Thanks for the confidence, big guy. I didn’t fall off the turnip truck yesterday.”
“The question becomes, what was he doing with her all that time, if he didn’t rape her. Why did he wait to kill her?” Pete asked, ignoring my snarky response.
When Dr. Darzi switched to Ayers’s body, Pete and I both moved in closer again. The gunshot wounds could tell us a lot.
Darzi pointed at the wounds as one of his assistants took pictures. “Here. See? There are traces of the heavy flannel shirt in the wound. I examined the clothing before it was removed. I didn’t see any carbonaceous material or gunshot residue, which would lead me to believe that the wound was received at a distance greater than four feet… possibly more like ten. Forensics will be able to test the material.
“Now if you look here at the head wound, you’ll see that there is a little bit of tattooing. I would say that this wound occurred when the victim was approximately two feet from the gun. No closer then that and, depending on the gun and type of ammunition, no more than three feet.”
“So,” Pete started thinking out loud, “assuming that the first round was the one in the chest, it was fired at a distance greater than four feet and the second round was fired as close as two feet from his head.”
“Nothing contradicts Nichols,” I said.
“You might even say that it backs him up.”
Darzi was busy probing for the bullet in the brain. A new investigator might be surprised that the bullet didn’t exit through the back of the head, but if you see enough gunshot wounds and follow enough bullet trails in the real world you realize that bullets do strange things. It always follows the laws of physics, but the full story often isn’t obvious until you find the bullet and work backward.
Darzi brought out the bone saw and began cutting around the top of Ayers’s skull. Finally, turning off the bone-jarring sound of the saw, he lifted off the skull cap. Even to my untrained eye the brain looked badly damaged.
“The bullet seems to have entered at a slight angle, causing it to curve and follow the curvature of the skull, absorbing its inertia.” Darzi paused and looked up thoughtfully. “If that’s the right word. I never can keep inertia and momentum straight. Doesn’t matter. The result is clear. The bullet whirled around inside his skull. He would have been brain dead almost instantly.” He stopped again. “Or do I mean instantaneously?” He shrugged and went back to removing what was left of the brain for sectioning.
We watched for half an hour more before we’d had enough. The forensic results would take a couple of weeks, unless something specific came up that we could press them on. Right now, nothing looked urgent.
Chapter Six
“Let’s stop at the crime scene,” Pete said as we came into Calhoun.
I could see the orange paint on the concrete where we’d marked the positions of the bodies, Nichols’s car and the rough positions where he claimed to have fired the shots.
“Okay, we’ve got some idea of the distance that each shot was fired from. You be Ayers,” Pete said, pointing me toward the mark on the ground representing Ayers’s body.
“Why do I have to be the dead guy?” I joked. “I should start back here anyway.” I moved to the spot representing Angie Maitland.
“Right. I’ll start roughly where the door to Nichols’s car would have been.”
Pete got in position, pulling out a pen to represent Nichols’s gun. I got down on the ground facing the outline of Angie’s body.
“Sheriff’s deputy!” Pete shouted. I didn’t move right away. “Stand up!” Pete ordered. “Keep your hands where I can see them.”
I stood up. “We don’t know if his hands were up or down,” I said, turning around.
“We’ll have more to go on after we formally interview Nichols,” Pete said. “But going with what we have, we know that he moved out to about here.”
Pete moved to the spot where Nichols told us he was standing. This was partly verified by the nine-millimeter shell casings that we found near the spot. Ballistics would do some tests with Nichols’s gun and ammunition to see where and how consistently it threw its spent casings.
When Pete stopped he was about fifteen feet away from me with his “gun” in the classic low ready position, keeping the barrel pointed safely at the ground, but ready to be raised and fired at the suspect at any sign of a threat. I charged him. Slightly surprised by the suddenness of it, Pete raised his “weapon” and attempted to get off the two shots.
“See, that doesn’t work,” he said. “You had your head down. My first shot wouldn’t have hit you in the chest. Try again, but keep more erect.”
We did it again.
“Possibly,” I said, shrugging.
“Yeah. Be interesting to see what the state ballistics guys come up with when Darzi sends them the autopsy report. The actual bullet trajectories will help us map out what happened. I’ll give them a nudge. They’ll be
willing to put a rush on it since this is a deputy-involved shooting.”
“I don’t think ballistics are going to solve this one.”
“I’m inclined to agree with you, brother,” Pete said philosophically.
The words were hardly out of his mouth when a blue Dodge pickup truck came around the corner of the store. It was moving erratically and a little too fast. Pete and I exchanged looks as the truck came to an abrupt stop about fifty feet in front of us. A middle-aged man jumped out of the cab and headed toward us, weaving ever so slightly. He had oily, uncut hair, an untrimmed beard and was wearing boots, jeans and a dirty flannel shirt.
“Who are you two?” he demanded, his eyes burning.
“Deputies Macklin and Henley,” I said, pulling my coat back far enough so that the star on my belt showed. There are times when you have to bow up and put on your I’m in charge, you’re not attitude, and it’s almost always called for when you’re dealing with someone who’s had a bit too much to drink.
In this case all I did was set him off. He lunged clumsily and half swung a fist at me. “You sonsofbitches,” he managed to both yell and mumble at the same time, which was quite a feat.
I grabbed his arm and pulled it behind his back, causing him to fall to his knees.
“Letgoofme!” he yelled. “Youbastards! Youkilledmybrother youassholes.” He screamed incoherently then started to cry. The tension went out of him and he became dead weight. I let go of his arm and he slumped the rest of the way to the ground.
“Mr. Ayers, we’re out here trying to figure out what happened last night,” I told him. “If your brother was treated unfairly, we’re as interested in finding that out as you are.”
He had his head buried in his arms as he cried. Finally, he wiped his eyes and rolled over. I suspect that with the alcohol and the grief, he couldn’t have stood up if he’d wanted to.
“My brother never did nothin’ to no women,” he slurred. “But you killed him anyway.”
“How do you know he didn’t assault those women?” Pete asked, standing over him.
“Don’t think he could,” the man said. “You don’t understand. He was nice. I was the asshole.” He said this last slowly and deliberately.
“Come on, sit up.” I offered him my hand. He took it and I pulled him upright. He flipped over onto his knees and finally staggered to his feet. I helped him over to Pete’s car, where he leaned heavily against the hood.
“What’s your name?”
“I’m Wayne. I’m Wayne Ayers and my brother is Jeffrey Ayers. Damn you,” he said sadly.
“Wayne, you seem sure that your brother couldn’t have assaulted those women. Was he… gay?” I asked.
His eyes got wide for a moment and I worried that he might come off the car swinging at me again. But he just put his head back and laughed. “Jeffrey gay? No, lord, no. Don’t make me laugh.” He stopped laughing and his eyes seemed to sober up. “Look, talk to his girlfriend. Candace Lansky…”
He seemed to lose his train of thought to the alcohol for a moment, but managed to get back on track. “Lives over on the north side. Go talk to her. She’ll set you straight.” He looked sick and leaned back across the hood of Pete’s car.
“Look, we can’t let you drive home. I’m going to park your truck in the lot, lock it up and we’ll drop you off at your mom’s.” Pete didn’t wait for a response as he walked over to the truck and drove it around to the front of the shopping center. I stayed with the sad and drunk Wayne Ayers. When Pete came back we were at least able to return one son home safe to his mother.
It was after six by the time Pete dropped me off at my car. “I’m headed home,” I told Cara, calling her as soon as I was moving in the right direction.
“Long day?” She sounded tired herself.
“A bit. Yours?”
“Tough.”
“Dinner?”
“Let me feed Alvin and give him a bit of attention, then I’ll be over.” Alvin was the Pug she’d rescued when he was abandoned at the vet.
“Deal.”
“I’ve got some sauce. Do you have some spaghetti?”
“Actually, I do. Surprised?”
“You always surprise me.”
I hung up with a smile on my face. We’d only been seriously dating for a month, but I’d never felt this comfortable with a woman. Maybe not with anyone. It was amazing how stupid banter about dinner arrangements could make me feel so good.
The winter sun was long gone by the time I drove down the dirt road that led to my doublewide on twenty acres. It was easy to feel like I was leaving the job behind when I came home. I could see the soft glow of town in the distance, but here the moonlight dominated the sky. Tonight the moon was full and it cast enough blue-tinged light that I could walk under the live oaks to my house without stumbling.
Ivy met me at the door, rubbing against my legs until I fed her dinner. I took a hot shower and changed, then hurried to put water on for the spaghetti. I was still trying to impress Cara with all the life skills I’d mastered.
“And I am impressed,” she said as she heated up her homemade sauce.
“I can even make garlic bread!”
“Okay, don’t overdo it. You’ll just set yourself up for failure,” she joked, smiling as I spread butter on the bread, sprinkled it with garlic salt and slid the tray into the oven with a flourish.
After she turned back to stir the sauce, I spent a moment savoring the sight of her. The red hair and Irish complexion she got from her mother went well with the strong jaw that came from her Nordic father. Whenever I looked at her I always felt like I could see the joy inside of her. If it wasn’t actually displayed in her eyes and her laughter, I could sense it just below the surface, waiting to return with a smile.
“That’s done enough,” she proclaimed. “Let’s eat.”
After we’d taken the edge off our hunger, I said, “You sounded like your day was pretty rough.” I gave her an opening without pushing. We still weren’t familiar enough with each other for me to tell if she wanted to talk about her bad day or leave it behind.
“It was pretty awful. We lost a dog. A Bassett. He was old, but such a sweetie.” I could hear her choke up.
“You don’t have to talk about it.”
“I know, but it’s all right. We helped him over the Rainbow Bridge.” She paused and looked at me. “I guess that sounds corny.”
“No, not at all,” I said sincerely. “My faith is not always as secure it should be, but I’ve never doubted that a good dog goes to heaven. A good cat too!” I said to Ivy, who was watching us from the couch.
“Of course, the things I see at the vet are nothing compared to what you have to deal with most days. I guess that’s why you’ve thought you’d rather do something else with your life.”
“It is. But I’ve watched my dad, and he seems to have done a pretty good job of balancing things. If he can, then so can I.”
“He seems like a good man.” Cara had known my dad in passing from his visits to the vet with Mauser, but he’d insisted on a formal introduction at Christmas. I was encouraged that she hadn’t been scared off by him.
“He has his moments. But Dad can be the proverbial bull in the china shop sometimes.” I loved my father, but there was a lot of truth in that statement.
“How bad is all of this going to be for him?”
“I don’t know. A lot depends on what Pete and I can find out.”
“How’s that going?”
“I hate having to follow Pete around but, understandably, Dad doesn’t want me out on point with this one. But we’ve decided we can split up a bit. In fact, I’m going out in the morning to interview a woman who knew Ayers.”
“Was he the rapist?”
“When we turned him loose, we didn’t think so.” I shrugged. “But who knows? We all make mistakes. Unfortunately, in law enforcement, if you make a bad enough mistake people can get hurt.”
Cara raised her hands. “Sorry, that’
s enough talking about sad things.” We got up and cleared the table, which included clearing Ivy, who had come over to lick the plates clean.
We spent the rest of the evening watching a silly movie, cuddled together under a blanket as the heat was barely able to keep up with the dropping temperatures outside. Cara was opening the vet’s office the next morning, so she couldn’t stay the night, but for a few hours at least, all was right with the world.
Chapter Seven
The next morning, I took my time getting up and out. There was no hurry since I wanted to talk with Candace Lansky before going to the office. For a casual interview I’d found it best to give people a chance to get beyond their morning routines before I started asking questions.
Once on the road, I called dispatch and asked them to check the DMV records for her address. She lived in a small house on the north side. It wasn’t one of the better areas of the county, but the road she lived on wasn’t the worse. I looked at my watch—almost nine. I was running the risk of missing her if she had a job to get to, but I’d take my chances.
There was a car in the driveway so I seemed to be in luck. I knocked on the door several times before it opened. No worries about her rushing off to work. She stood there staring at me, wearing a robe and a snarky expression. She obviously needed quite a while for her morning routine.
“Who the hell are you?” Candace Lansky asked.
“Sorry to bother you. I’m Deputy Larry Macklin. I’m investigating the death of Jeffrey Ayers.”
She looked me dead in the eye and said, “It’s not enough that you shot him dead, you have to go around and wake up all his friends? I heard you were harassing Wayne yesterday.”
“That’s not exactly what happened.”
She held up her hand to stop me. “Wayne is the victim in every story he tells. S’okay, come in. I’m freezing my tits off.”
She stepped back, holding the door open. All the blinds were drawn, making the living room dark and gloomy. The room smelled of stale cigarettes and liquor. “Have a seat.” She waved toward a saggy couch.